


My Wish Was For You

by CardboarianNights



Series: Fall from the sky [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, More like Romance story with body horror in it?, Post-Apocalypse, Romance, Romantic Horror Story, no matter what it's a romance story through and through, very soft and fluffy though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:29:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardboarianNights/pseuds/CardboarianNights
Summary: In the year 20XX, civilization ended when the Lord of Stars descended on Earth. Jack Morrison’s worldview was changed just as dramatically along with his eyesight when the stars themselves filled the cockpit of his battlemech and his life ceased to belong to himself.This is a love story about a man and a god, who peeled himself from the heavens to be with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This has nothing to do with the movie 'Stardust'.
> 
> Extra Note: If you are squicked by body horror or implied body horror then this story is not for you. I like to think I was rather light on the 'body' parts of the 'body horror' since almost all of it is implied except for one part where Jack's fingers on his left hand become temporarily fused together.
> 
> The Volskaya mech is the closest we get to pure body horror though in that all machinery is in the process of being turned to flesh but nothing is very gross about the cockpit and such. There's NO gore or fetishising of body parts. There's no blood or anything really about the mech that would imply that it's actually alive or sentient outside of Gabriel making it his home. No 'beating hearts' or anything.
> 
> This is a love story with body horror/horror elements in it. Please treat it as such while reading it.

Jack Morrison has no eyes and hasn't needed them for a decade. His skin has healed over whatever happened to his face when he directly touched one of the many tiny, palm-sized stars that hovered in the cockpit of his mech. Jack wears a bandana over the heavily scarred area now but it doesn't really affect his ability to pilot his mech as he see’s through infrared heat signals, something similar to what snakes do to hunt prey, outside of the mech, while Gabriel directly feeds him visuals from the fleshy cable that is connected to the bottom of his skull in the back. 

Most of the mech has been eaten away and replaced by fleshy components over the decade as Gabriel converts everything over to allow him an anchor in the physical world. The old Volskaya mech works the same for the most part and is the only machine of its kind that is still operational to this day, but to call it a ‘machine’ would be a blatant lie considered how far it deviated from the original design. The only thing that really still existed in its original state in its entirety would have to be the Tolberstein fusion core but that’s only because Gabriel likes how pretty it is.

Jack groans as the mech’s left leg starts to jam up again, pulling back on the joysticks to a neutral position, standing them straight up, while he lifts his feet off the pedals to make the mech come to a halt. He lightly rests his head back against the seat of soft flesh as he relaxes his arms on the armrest before letting out an incredulous sigh as he brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose in irritation. 

“What?” Gabriel asks from somewhere in the cockpit lining, a warm orange and gold-yellow figure is coming from the where the monitor would be directly in front of Jack but that isn't always an accurate indicator of where Gabriel was, oddly enough, amongst the pale yellows of warmth that Jack can see that make up the interior of the cockpit.

“Give me a second, Gabe, this is the fourth time I’ve had to pump the coolant through the left leg manually today because you keep fucking around down there.” Jack groaned as he laid back in his seat, lifting up his legs upwards to stretch out the stiff muscles there and put his arms carefully behind his head to stretch out his arms. He was tired and ready to sleep in an actual bed, no matter how soft Gabriel made the seat or adjusted the cockpit so he could lay down and sleep. Getting out of the mech was what really helped him sleep soundly. “How far till the next drop zone?” Jack asked as he relaxed in his seat.

“Not far. Maybe five miles?” Gabriel guessed and Jack immediately sat up in his seat, reaching down to the side of the seat panel to flip a switch that had the same texture consistency as a thick toenail (but less disgusting) and placed his feet on the pedal levers to start pumping it with his left foot to force the coolant through whatever the hell Gabriel clogged the pipeworks with while he converted metal parts to flesh down there. He gave it four hard pumps before reaching down on the panel on the side of his seat again to flip the switch back into place and sitting back to take the joysticks into his hand, pulling them back once before pushing them forward as he pressed his feet down on the pedal plates under his boots. The mech moved forward with less resistance this time and Jack had to let out a sigh in relief that he wouldn't have to double pump the coolant. 

That’s what sucked about the mech now that it wasn't a machine anymore; he couldn't just operate it smoothly with everything working automatically, he had to fucking troubleshoot fucking everything and manually operate the piece of shit that was Gabriel's mobile temple. He was the head priest, in a way, but a fucking pack mule as well when they went from drop zone to drop zone around the world.

The drop zones were areas where stardust ingrained itself into the Earth, allowing for the flora to accelerate its recovery as it reclaimed the metal and glass world for itself. Obviously, a lot of people and animals congregated into those zones as well so it was important that Jack visit those places just so he could get to fuck out of his mech, no matter the positives or negatives that came with that decision. 

“You think they got onion rings there, Gabe? God, I would kill for a bag of onion rings right about now.” Jack groaned as his mouth watered from the old memory of processed food in bags so easily available and cheap to buy.

“It wouldn't taste like you remember anyways. Direct contact with a star warps everything, Jack.” Gabriel reminded him as Jack continued to move the mech down the road, noticing the speckles of faint heat signatures from the stardust deep underground, reassuring him he was on the right path. All crumbling highways lead to somewhere interesting, he finds, especially when there’s stardust trails involved.

“What’s the probability of rain in the area, Gabe? Think we might get a good haul of water to refresh the coolant and water tanks?” Jack asked, trying to stay positive since they spent the last month traveling across the Atlantic and had a rather unfortunate run-in with a certain famous shipwreck when Gabriel dismissed its importance as being ‘rusted trash’. Whenever humanity gets the ability to build submarines and the like again, he hopes he’ll be long dead with how badly they trashed the bow of the ship, walking right through it like paper. Do aliens really not research planets before they decide to fall to them?!

“We’re not underwater anymore, if that’s what you’re asking, Jack.”

“No shit, Gabe. I can make out the outlines of highways rather than endless nothing and trenches we have to hop over.” 

“Are you still made that I-”

“I’m fucking livid you ran my mech right through the Titanic without a second thought, Space Fart. Now, answer my question!” Jack growled, focusing his attention on the road and the outlines of vehicles they passed on the highway, their shells a bright orange from sitting out in the sun during the summer time. 

They should be in England somewhere, right? If only he could read maps rather than just trying to read heat signatures off of monuments to try to guess their shapes if there wasn’t a settlement nearby where he could get out of the mech to talk to people and distribute fresh water. That was what Jack wanted to do with his mech since it was hard for people to repair their water recycling plants, assuming they lived in first-world countries at all. Gabriel’s tampering with the mech meant that it was capable of collecting fresh water from rainfall and bodies of water (sans the ocean) in huge quantities and then distribute them for free to colonies or ‘drop zones’, if Jack had visited them before and the people were generally friendly to them.

How a giant flesh mech could survive the crush depths beyond even the most advanced submarines was something that still had Jack scratching his head. Gabriel was just crazy efficient at doing everything to optimize the mech to allow Jack to live relatively comfortable inside it, and even fed him from the storage compartment where Jack would place perishables like meat and produce when they stopped at a drop zone for trading. The food in there would never spoil and tasted just fine when Gabriel would part the walls to pass him some freshly cooked meat.

Jack learned to stop asking questions if he didn’t want answers he wouldn’t like to hear - it made their relationship that much more acceptable, even if it felt like Stockholm Syndrome at times. Gabriel promised him that he would never feed him anything Jack didn’t physically put into the storage compartment and that was fine.

“Precipitation is around seventy percent in this part of the world around this time of year, but the stardust affects the quality of the rain water here as well in relation to human consumption, as usual.” Gabriel answered with a huff and Jack just mentally rolled his eyes at the attitude the ‘lord of the stars’ was giving him.

“Gee. I wonder why it’s like that.” Jack shot back sarcastically, earning him a firm prick in his lower back that made him jump in his seat. 

“Quiet, Asshole. We’re approaching the London drop zone right now. I’m sending out the beacon for our approach.” Gabriel announced with very little fanfare as the mech started vibrating slightly.

It was impossible to hear anything inside of the cockpit due to how airtight and padded the interior was but Jack could only guess he was emitting a loud noise to signal their approach to the settlement. Jack could see the brightness of the stardust congregation in the ground, far off in the distance, but it looked like one small yellow blob to his mind. They weren’t close enough for Jack to visually see it but Gabriel was the ever reliable GPS system when he didn’t feel like being a complete asshole - things would be a lot better if he would get off his high horse and learn to read a map for them so Jack knew exactly where they were headed instead of Gabriel doing what he wanted.

The London drop zone wasn’t even near the historical capital of England, but about a good distance south of the city ruins and merely called ‘London’ due to its proximity - it was kind of how the naming sakes of the rest of the drop zones went even if it wasn’t official. Although some governments survived the apocalypse, the grand disaster reset a lot of power these once-superpowers had to practically that of just a feudal lord’s since agricultural centers that survived quickly became center holds of power. Sure, things like atomic weapons, navies, air forces, and armies still existed but they were hardly maintained afterwards as survivors were either too undereducated to operate them or the educated fled with easier to maintain arms to barricade themselves in their homes to protect their families.

Jack’s mech was a testament of all this since Gabriel had to convert it to an easier-to-maintain organism since he refused to let Jack wander or trade anything significant off the mech to scalpers who might try to kill him to grab the mech. The mech had no real ways of defending itself except for an impenetrable flesh armor around it that bullets and cannonballs couldn’t dent and mostly got by being to huge to scale with Gabriel constantly on watch for climbers.

It took them another twenty minutes before Jack pulled up on the joysticks to put them into a neutral position before slowly lifting his feet off the pedals to bring the mech to a halt in front of a giant wooden wall that protected the perimeter of the London drop zone colony. There were several yellow with orange centered figures on the top of the wooden wall, protecting the plethora of wooden houses inside, most likely the colony’s patrol guards. Jack wouldn’t doubt if they were all aiming their guns up at the massive flesh mech before them out of fear.

Jack leaned forward to flip a switch on the console to activate the radio, picking up a manual walkie-talkie that felt more like a very firm tomato in his hand and brought it to his lips as the radio receiver in the mech channeled in noises from outside. “Attention, London colony drop zone number one, this is the Volskaya Unit, ‘Apache’, operator, Jack Morrison, speaking! I am unarmed and I wish to unload purified water to your colony, in exchange for a meal and lodging for the night. I will stay no longer than for the evening, if you will kindly consider allowing me shelter for the night.” 

He could hear the sounds of birds and hammers being applied to the wooden roofs in the distance, a big improvement for the colony considering his last visit was three years ago. They sounded much more industrial and hopefully they would consider letting him back in for the evening, if the colony leadership hadn’t drastically changed hands. Raids were always on the forefront of drop zone occupant’s minds…

“You there, Jack?!” A woman’s voice yelled upwards to him with the assistance of a megaphone in her hand as she joined the men on the wall. “It’s good to hear your voice again, Love!”

Jack felt himself smile as the weight of uncertainty on his shoulders was lifted right off by hearing her voice again. “Lena Oxton? Is that your voice I’m hearing?” He felt himself tease as he hear the Brit happily chuckle at his terrible joke.

Lena Oxton was part of the air squadron that escorted Jack’s mech team to battle all those years ago but she was lucky enough to be far enough away from ground zero when it all went to hell, pulled from the wreckage of her jet by her co-pilot, Emily, to live another day. Jack could only imagine how horrifying it was to be in the air when the literal cosmos fell to Earth…

“Come on down, Dad. I’ll make ya up a good cup while the boys work with Gabriel to refill our underground reservoir!” Lena joked sarcastically, making Gabriel groan softly behind him to hear her peppy voice and relinquish Jack to her.

“I’ll be right down in a few, Lena!” Jack happily found himself reply before putting the talkie-talkie back onto the console, Gabriel promptly shutting off communications from the mech to the outside while still letting them hear chatter and noises from the outside on the radio. “I’m going to need my clothes and my boots, Gabe.” 

“Yeah. I got you, Geezer.” Gabriel practically smirked as he parted the flesh walls to allow Jack to reach inside to pull out his modesty essentials when he went to make treks outside of the mech; boxers, jeans (with several holes worn into them), military-issued boots, a dark green T-shirt, socks, and his favorite red, white, and blue ‘76’ biker jacket. They were all dry and were lacking any body odor as Jack pushed the armrests away to give himself some space to start from his feet up while Gabriel started unplugging him from the mech itself. The fleshy cord attached to the outside of his rectum was the first to detach, pulling itself into the small opening in the bottom of the seat lining before the opening closed itself back up, like it was never there in the first place. The one on the head of his penis detached, drawing a soft grunt of discomfort from Jack before being retracted into the seat cushion as well. Jack was dressed up fully minus his shirt and coat as he waited for Gabriel to slowly detach the nerves connecting the mech/Gabriel to Jack’s brain, folding his hands over his lap as he listened to the birds chirping as they flew by outside. 

“Can I leave half of the chord attached to you this time without fear of you wrecking the nerves inside the port attachment?” Gabriel grumbled in annoyance, likely referring to the previous incidents where Jack rolled over in his sleep, snagging on the catheter-like flesh chord and damaging the teeny holes where Gabriel slid the mech visualization nerve cells into when Jack came back into the cockpit the next day. It beat the alternative; which was leaving a hole that led directly to Jack’s brain and they both knew he would die of an infection probably overnight.

“So long as you detach the nerves enough from my brain that it won't kill me if I do involuntarily roll over in my sleep then we should be fine.” Jack sighed before letting out sharp hiss as the world suddenly snapped into an incredibly small scope, Gabriel finishing his disconnection of the nerves as a flesh thread the size of wet spaghetti noodle (but much drier) lightly fell back against his neck. He was pretty sure the pain was from Gabe closing the flesh around the port end when he detached the nerves to prevent infection of the chord from happening, assuming Jack didn't fuck up sleeping tonight. Jack then got to work pulling his T-shirt on, being carefully with the cord dangling then slipped his arms through his jacket, and tucking the chord into the back of his collar to secure it. “How do I look?” He asked Gabriel curiously.

Jack turned as he heard the wall to his left open up, knowing that Gabriel himself was there, his heat signature a light orange in general at the moment but was impossible for Jack to make out his partner’s outline from how much it moved around. 

“Your fingers on your left hand are fused together from the second set of knuckles down, thumb and pinky are just fine.” Gabriel spoke, Jack uselessly raising both of his hands in front of his face as he was blinded by the bright white that was his heat signature but still tried to spread his fingers apart anyways to see there was indeed resistance in his left hand where there should be none.

“Well. Shit.” Jack responded intelligently, earning an exasperated sigh from Gabriel in return.

“I warned you about keeping any part of yourself stagnant for too long that this will happen. Finger and toe exercises are just as important as stretching out your back and legs so they don't fuse together to the chair.” Gabriel chastised Jack as another hole in cockpit’s lininning opened and Jack watched as an orange heat signature appendage dropped some light cloth onto Jack’s hands before pulling away back into the new opening and sealing itself. “Use that shirt to wrap up your hand while you’re outside, Jack. I’ll fix your hand when you come back tomorrow morning. Oh!” Gabriel opened up the wall once more and used a similar appendage as before to deposit a small cardboard box with something inside of it. 

“What’s this?”

“Canned dried spices from India and some jars filled with potato, lettuce, and apple seeds. You were a pain in the ass about me storing these for the Oxton’s colony and you forgot? Come on, Jack.” Gabriel huffed in annoyance but was considerably less annoyed since Jack was smiling from ear to ear with that warm smile of his as he traced the outline of the jars with his finger tips. 

“Thanks for remembering, Gabe. I can't believe I was going to visit without a gift.” Jack chuckled fondly as the appendages coming out of the walls helped wrap the shirt around Jack’s hand to help conceal his temporary issue before retracting back into the wall.

“A kiss would be nice…”

Jack scooted over to the extreme left of his chair and leaned over to kiss Gabriel, keeping one hand on the present box so it wouldn't get knocked over. Gabriel had a very human pair of lips from what it felt like but Jack knew that a humanoid form certainly wasn't what Gabe was originally and was doing it simply for Jack’s comfort and his own curiosity. Jack adored Gabriel and he knew Gabriel adored him - even if it did take destroying the life that Jack knew…

“You going to be okay here, Gabe? You could always come with me to see Lena and Emily again. You know they don’t mind how you look.” Jack offered as he drew away from Gabriel with a warm smile on his lips.

“If I do that then there’s no one to pump the water into the reservoir, Jackie.” Gabriel chuckled as he leaned forward to press his forehead against Jack’s affectionately. “It’s fine to be caught up in the moment but one of us has to keep in mind the big picture of our travels.” He reminded Jack gently.

“Right. How about after you’re done? Maybe when it gets dark you could slip into the compound if you’re worried about others seeing you?”

Gabriel was quiet for a few moments before retracting himself back into the wall. “I’ll think about it. Just stay safe, alright?”

“I will, Gabe. Just promise me you won’t be too condescending when the helpers inevitably make an ignorant suggestion to cultivate the purified water from the tanks?” 

Gabriel laughed at that. “Jack, please, I am a being who is the closest thing this rock of a planet will ever come close enough to see for their own eyes! Don’t take my one guilty pleasure of chastising the ignorant of their pathetic methods!”

Jack scowled at that haughty remark but stayed quiet.

Way too quiet for too long.

“Okay, fine. I’ll correct them in a more acceptable manner. What’s the word you humans use to describe that act again, Jack?”

“‘Educate’. You educate the ignorant so they learn to or not to do something that annoys you, Gabe.” Jack replied in a dead-panned manner before sighing heavily. Seriously, Gabriel was getting better at his socialization skills after ten years of being with Jack but he still enjoyed toting around his mightier-than-thou persona from time-to-time. “How are the preparations coming for stabling the cockpit to outside conditions, Gabe?”

Gabriel hummed for a moment before answering. “Being under a high-pressure environment for a long time made it necessary to fortify the area around the cockpit, especially the door. I’m in the process of breaking down the layers, similar to enamel coating, that line the door frame since I finally finished restructuring the fibers of the ligaments that lay over that enamel to keep a constant pressure on the door. All the other parts that act as hinges and cogs to allow for the lowering of the door have been completed since we stepped out of the ocean since I wanted to make sure the mechanism still worked as intended.” He sighed heavily. “The lack of aerial mobility of this mech is more taxing than I originally thought it would be. Maybe we should stop by Volskaya Industries the next time we are in the Russian Dominion and ask their engineers to do some feasible outlines on hypothetical flight capabilities on this unit.”

“Can’t you just do that? Your knowledge is omniscient, after all.” Jack commented as he laid back in his seat, knowing that it might take a while for Gabriel to finish off-boarding preparations.

“It doesn’t work like that, Jack.”

Jack frowned at that. “I know, but, it would certainly make things easier if you could just create what you need.”

“You specifically disallowed any plans for a ‘hive mind’, as you described, ten years ago, Jack.”

“No shit. My feelings on that still haven’t changed.” Jack huffed in annoyance. “I am allowed to fantasize about a simpler world from time-to-time but I’m clearly not interested in indulging it.”

“You’re so fucking weird, Jack.” Gabriel teased, making Jack’s face flush red in embarrassment.

“Fuck off, Gabe! You know how many years I put up with your constant misinterpretation of my ‘desires’?! I have every right to be afraid of not being clear enough whenever I talk to you!”

Gabriel chuckled in amusement to that but knew very well how far he had come to better assimilate with this world’s way of thinking by being close with his partner.

“Oh. I’ve finished preparations to open the door, Jack. As usual, stay seated until I set you on the ground, alright?”

“Roger, Gabe.” Jack responded, feeling the seat under him along with the cockpit vibrate as the outer-blasting door was being lowered before the inner two sliding doors slowly started to pull apart. 

The console began to part in the middle, the two sides sliding to lock along side the left and right armrests while the holoscreen that acted as the HUD (if it was still even active after Jack went blind) would have flickered away while the smell of fresh air slowly started to flow into the cockpit. Jack smiled as he took a deep breath of the first fresh air he had in a month. The air was damp on his tongue, meaning that rain was indeed on its way or fell already but currently wasn’t actively fall because he would have been able to hear it by now on the radio. The seat began to rumble again, like moving forward out of the cockpit before reaching the edge where Jack was then lowered with the seat to the ground far below with the crane wire - something Gabriel innovated since he didn’t want Jack to have to use the crane wire and hook to go down by himself, swinging in the wind. 

Jack felt the wind blowing through his white, short locks, his hairline slowly starting to recede from years of stress and the effects of the stardust - getting off a lot easier than others as long as he properly moved all of his body parts once in awhile in the cockpit to not merge with it. He kept his wrapped up hand on the box in his lap while the other pressed back against the seat couch as it opened up below his hand to push his trust 9mm into his hand. Jack tucked the weapon into his coat pocket, after assessing that the safety was on, and took deep breath to ease his anxiety.

Lena, Emily, and Gabriel would not let anything bad happen to him. He was safe in the London drop zone. He just needed to keep telling himself that it will be alright in his head and that everything will turn out fine like the last time he was here. 

It would be another ten minutes before the vibration came to a halt and Jack lifted his head up to see two heat signatures (one that was a familiar blinding white at their head level) running over to him. There were a lot of heat signatures over by where there was likely a door through the wall to allow the outside into the colony and they all seemed to blend together in his ‘eyes’ - likely a crowd gathered to watch him come out of the alien-looking mech.

\--

Jack shifted in his chair at the table, not used to sitting on hard, wooden surfaces after month of sitting on whatever-it-is-Gabriel-converted-his-seat-into but it was tolerable as Lena sat down next to him with what was likely a kettle from the dark orange heat moving around inside of it but not spilling outward. The house was a bit larger than he remembered but the cool blue colors and the occasional yellows reminded him of what it was like to be in a normal environment rather than constantly being surrounded by yellows and light oranges in the cockpit. Emily sat down adjacent to Lena and started pouring them both tea into cups that quickly warmed from blue to a light orange from the heat of the liquid inside of it before setting the cup in front of Jack. He frowned as he traced his fingers along side the heat of the cup, feeling for the hook before Emily got out of her chair and walked up behind him. 

“Let me help you with that, Jack.” Emily spoke reassuringly before reaching to hold both of his hands to guide it to the cup, pausing as her fingers brushed over his fingers on his left hand. “Your hand is wrapped up. Did you get hurt?”

“Are your windows shut and curtained?” Jack asked hesitantly, not wanting to be overheard by the others who lived in the drop zone and were curious about the newcomer piloting the mech. 

“Mhm. We figured out how to make window locks two years ago along with all sorts of things while you were away.” Emily stated proudly, earning a sweet chuckle from Lena next to them.

“Emily has really brightened her horizons when it comes to innovatin’! Gabriel’s advice really helped us, even if it was pretty painful to consider in the first place.” Lena added. 

“You can untie the shirt around my hand, hopefully Gabe just actually attempted to make a knot rather than use ‘glue’ to hold it together.” Jack chuckled nervously, not really knowing what Gabriel did and walked confidently through the gate into the drop zone past all sorts of people not used to the sight like he would be if he could see.

“He actually managed a knot quite well this time, Jack.” Emily remarked fondly as he began untying the fabric and letting out an accidental gasp when she pulled it off to see his hand. 

“Before you rush to call a doctor, my hand is perfectly fine and Gabe will be fixing it up when I get back into the mech. This is kind of what happens when I don’t flex my body parts out enough but it’s kind of easy to lose track of time in the cockpit when your hands constantly stayed glued to the controls and my left hand didn’t seem to cramp up as my as my right hand did.” He explained to Emily and heard a hum of acknowledgement from her as she placed her hands over Jack’s once more to guide them to the proper place on the teacup to handle it. Her hands hovered over Jack’s as he lifted the cup upwards to his lips without touching them, just in case since it must be expensive to own a full tea set in a drop zone, and he took a small sip of the hot liquid. 

God, he missed breakfast tea so much.

“Well? Is it good?” Emily asked proudly and confidently went over to pour Lena some tea before sitting back down in her seat.

“Any flavored drink is a luxury to taste these days, Emily. Thank you for sharing some of your best saved teas for me.” 

“It’s the least we could do with the great gifts you bring back for us on your travels, Jack! Not to mention the purified water couldn’t have come at a better time!” Lena chuckled happily but Jack couldn’t help but notice Emily’s almost hesitant laughing coming in a moment late.

“... Something happen while I was away?” Jack asked, taking another sip of his tea before carefully lowering it back down on the pale yellow mark on the table where the cup resided just a few moments ago.

“Not as much as we hoped would happen.” Emily answered somberly as she took a sip from her cup. 

“Right… We- I haven’t made much progress in developing safe mining techniques to draw out the stardust from the mines…” Lena hesitantly corrected herself as her fists balled up on the table, the tea cup sitting delicately between them untouched. “Can’t you make Gabriel give me a hint or somethin’, Jack?” She asked in anguish between gritted teeth, clearly not wanting to ask for help on a project that meant so much to her and, ideally, everyone on Earth.

Jack frowned as he stared at the warm blob of orange that was his tea, surrounded by cold blues in his mind’s eyes. “You can’t just force a god to do anything, Lena, and certainly not without a high price in exchange…” He spoke softly before flinching as Lena’s chair legs screeched loudly across the wooden floor when she suddenly bolted up to her feet.

“You have a lot of nerve saying that you can’t do anything to convince him, Jack Morrison.” Lena spoke coldly to him, Jack unable to look at her as he continued to look down at his tea and take his beatings without complaint. She had every right to be angry at him - the whole world did, at that. You know you’ve severely fucked up in life when Lena Oxton couldn’t keep her composure in front of you…

“He’ll just give me the same answer like the last time I asked him, Lena. ‘Humanity didn’t get to this point just to let a little stardust stop them’. He thinks giving humanity stardust, with no strings attached at all, was stretching his generosity too thin!” Jack attempted to explain once more before Lena slammed her hands down on the table, rattling their tea cups and the kettle but not knocking them over.

“That’s a load of bullshit, Jack! How the fuck is it ‘generous’ if he can’t even teach how to use this ‘infinite’ resource much less how to safely mine it?! I’m the only one who can safely go into the mine and not walk out more fucked up looking than I am right now!”

“Lena, please!” Emily begged, no doubt feeling the same way Lena did but wanted to keep the bridge between them and Jack from burning. “Jack, are you sure you can’t help us then if Gabriel can’t? What about your travels! Has anyone made steps towards harnessing stardust yet?” She asked, borderline sounding desperate in a way that made Jack’s heartache terribly for Lena’s burden.

Stardust is in the process of rejuvenating the natural world after the apocalypse and can be an infinitely renewable resource if humanity unlocked its secrets - truly a gift worthy of the gods that can power every aspect of society, if what Gabriel said was true. They wouldn’t even need fight over resources with stardust pushing humanity to a new era of prospect instead of stagnation and it wouldn’t cost lives outside of what was already lost when they fell to Earth and integrated with the land. The blood price was paid heavily upfront and now humanity was being tested to see if they would be truly worthy of evolving to the next stage by trying to utilize stardust by assisting those who survived direct contact those ten years ago.

It wasn’t cheating for Jack to help them with his own experiences as he traveled the lands with Gabriel at all, regardless of their closeness. He was impaled with the largest stardust fragment of all, after all.

“The Beijing drop zones have made huge progress into researching the stardust along with certain ‘education cults’ shunned in the United States. So, yes, you are certainly not alone in your endeavours as you think, Lena.” Jack reassured her as he reached for his cup, picking it up with ease as he brought it to his lips and sipped on the tea. “Hopefully people will start to migrate down the flora roads the mech leaves in its wake to come to the drop zone to pass more ideas around but I’ll actively try to convince scientists to come to the London drop zone in particular since no one wants to assist Lena.”

“Gives us details, Jack.” Lena spoke more calmly as she pulled her chair back up and sat down. “What methods are those countries trying?”

“The Chinese are trying a variety of low tech ways to see how stardust reacts since their tech is still pushed back like this particular drop zone. They’ve tried smashing it, setting it on fire, boiling it in water, leaving it out in direct sunlight, submerging it in cold water… all while attaching clamps and wires to see if it will light up a light bulb like those high school science projects they did back in the day.” Jack explained before taking another sip of his tea. “India is a bit more advanced in that they’re looking into ways to put it under pressure since some of their factories survived the apocalypse and they’re in the process of trying chemical reactions. The Vishkar Corporation fragment in India was very invested in my observation of their techniques and theorization, regardless that I am blind and no more educated in stardust that some schmuck who got hit by a rock in the head.”

Lena chuckled in amusement at that since she was in the same boat as Jack and had a shard of stardust imbedded into her when they sky fell ten years ago. “Does that mean that Symmetra…?”

“Forcefully took over Viskar when the executives died or fled during the apocalypse? You are indeed correct.” Jack smiled, enjoying the delighted gasps Lena and Emily made to hear that she survived.

“What about the others that were with us for ‘Operation: Snow Storm’?” Emily asked as Lena finally felt comfortable enough to take another drink from her cup. Operation: Snowstorm was the last joint UN mission since Gabriel arrived on Earth while it was on-going and ended whatever trivial thing they were fighting considering how everything was reset in the apocalypse. 

“Dunno in some cases. Planning on heading to France to visit the Lacroixs then Germany sometime in the late fall to see how the Berlin drop zone is doing. Assuming the mech doesn’t shit out on me for a month like it did last time.” Jack sighed in an exacerbated manner as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Isn’t the mech a living organism now?” Emily asked curiously. “What made it malfunction for a month?”

“Gabriel was working on converting the pelvis area of the mech and forgot about ‘the ball and socket’ principle for some goddamn reason. He stubbornly refused to ask me for help on why the mech couldn’t walk forward as well as it used to until week two when he finally let in on his embarrassment and I had to make a diagram in the dirt on how the whole principle worked.”

“Really? He didn’t figure out how the shoulders worked on the same principle when he converted those?” Lena spoke up, a bit amused with an omnipotent being’s failure to learn basic human anatomy. 

“Beats the hell out of me.” Jack shrugged his shoulders before finishing his cup and setting it back down on the table. “He’s a stubborn cunt to the core, at times.” The three of them got a good laugh out of that as Emily got up to refill Jack’s cup before setting the kettle back down and pushing her chair back in. 

“I’ll start making us some lunch. A sandwich sound good, Jack?” Emily offered and Jack nodded his head in her direction.

“Sounds good.”

“Lettuce, tomato, ham and turkey sound alright? We have some oregano left over.”

“Anything sounds like a treat, Emily. I’m not picky anymore.” Jack chuckled in amusement even though it was depressingly true that he wasn’t picky since his sense of smell and taste got warped in a few areas ten years back, especially when it came to meat. He waited for a few moments before picking up his refilled cup and taking another sip of it. “I can’t help but feel that you both are keeping something from me.” Jack murmured to Lena before setting his cup back down.

Lena sighed softly as she set down her cup as well. “Well, we weren’t lying when we said we were glad that you came around. We ran through the last bit of our purified water rations, even after restricting access to children and the sick when the underground reservoir was below twenty-five percent capacity a year ago. Water from ponds, streams, and rivers have stardust contamination that make it hard to drink the water, even when boiled, since it slowly causes mutations to happen in the body. No one wants to look ugly, right?” She laughed nervously and it dawned on him that the people in the drop zone thought they would end up looking like Lena or even Jack…

“There’s nothing wrong with being blind, Lena.” Jack reassured her as he lifted up his hand and placed it on her trembling shoulder. 

“You’re right, Jack. Gabriel was incredibly kind to remove as much excess as he could back then but I look anything but human now!” Lena sucked in a sharp breath before coughing, grieving over her loss still and the isolation she likely feels when being forced to go underground to find a way to save everyone. Jack has no idea what she looks like or if her face was mangled to something horrific that the drop zone residents were forced to accept. “I was so afraid of being blamed for not working fast enough before the water ran out. No one wants to help me but they all expect so much from a person who doesn’t know any engineering or even how to mine! The ones that tried to help always backed out once their nails started turning green or they think they’re hallucinating from being so close to raw stardust. People think it’s radiation the stardust is emitting, Jack. I don’t know what to do!”

Jack brought his hand down from her shoulder to rub slow circles into her back while she sniffed and coughed. He could only imagine how heavy the burden that was unncessarily placed on her shoulders and how dickish the zone residents were being to her while only looking out for their own interests - making her a literal canary in a coal mine. “Who’s in charge here? See if you can bring them in when we have dinner tonight so we can actually do something about this shit.”

“Jack, you said that…”

“I’m not getting involved in politics, Lena, I’m just going to grind some facts into their skull and see if we can actually get the ball moving around here.” Jack reaffirmed. “Civilization ain’t fucking dying on my watch.”

“... Thank you, Jack.” Lena spoke softly, glad to have a friend at her back when she was pushed this far up against the wall.

\--

“I’m sorry, you want me to WHAT now?” Gabriel spoke, completely baffled by Jack’s sudden request when he came back after lunch to see how the water transfer was going. A huge cord of flesh stretched out from a whole in the mech’s lower stomach, through the town, and into the chamber where they kept the underground reservoir encased so rain water wouldn’t get in or the water would get absorbed into the ground as it was pumped out of the mech through gravity (mostly). 

Jack was standing with Gabriel’s flesh avatar behind the huge leg of the mech, the body wearing elegant robes that were vaguely clerical in appearance but Jack couldn’t tell anymore details than that from the silhouette that he was human-passing. He figured that Gabriel wanted to walk around for a bit instead of staying cooped up in the mech and he was lucky that his partner never wandered very far in case an emergency occurred.

“Listen, the leaders of this drop zone are members of your ‘cult’-” 

“I did not approve of this in any measure whatsoever. You’re the one who told me not to get directly involved with Earth’s affairs, Jack.” Gabriel interrupted in a rather rude manner, crossing his blobby orange arms in Jack’s vision over his chest to get his point across on how disappointed he was with Jack’s decision on that front.

Jack sighed heavily and shook his head. “Gabe, these people are forcing Lena to work alone to come up with an idea on how to mine stardust and utilize it to advance the drop zone!”

“And?”

“They’re going to use her as a scapegoat when things don’t go smoothly and we don’t happen to be around to refill their reservoir to keep them content!” Jack explained in frustration to Gabriel’s apathetic nature when it came to others. 

“I don’t see the point in me showing up to dinner to try to educate them, Jack. You can’t claim to be any form of higher power without someone wanting to lynch you on this planet and I’m pretty sure they think I’m in the mech from the way the worshippers outside of that dinky church in town are on their knees and praying towards it. Also, you told me I can’t interfere anyways so why should I violate my contract for your convenience?” Gabriel countered as he huffed haughtily.

“But, Lena- !”

“Okay. Let’s say they actually consider killing her. They’ve just killed the only person in England who can directly touch stardust without any side-effects and their problem of harnessing stardust does not go away. Now, they’ll deal with their consequences by either sending people out of the drop zone to get specialists who can help them or just fucking sit on their hands with Emily tied up somewhere in her house cause Jack Morrison certainly won’t abandon her!” Gabriel spoke out dramatically. “No, no! Jack Morrison will definitely keep coming back as long as Emily is alive and well! He’s going to let the bad guys get away with killing Lena Oxton out of fear and keep pumping water into their reservoir while they never learn how to purify the water by themselves!”

“And you’re being an arrogant prick when you could be helping these peopl-”

Gabriel stepped into Jack’s space suddenly, his hand seizing Jack by the jaw to force him to look directly at Gabriel’s face. “Careful. My brand of ‘helping’ is not what this planet needs, Jack. Helping one person costed half of the life on this hunk of rock and you’re lucky that I gave your planet the means to quickly get back on its feet because I knew it would break your heart.” He spoke completely serious, the coldness on the brink of returning to his voice after nine years of constant contentment with the lord of stars. “I can’t help them, Jack. I can’t help Lena’s problems disappear because I’m not suppose to show anyone any real favoritism outside of you. Alright?”

“Yeah. Roger that.” Jack gritted out before the firm hand on his jaw gently massaged the pain out from holding it so firmly in his grasp.

“You can probably convince them without using me as leverage. That or you can shoot someone and force them to take this matter seriously but it might not be wise to use violence if we’re just going to walk away the next day and leave both of them to the wolves.” Gabriel encouraged him before leaning in to press his lips to Jack’s forehead. “I’m sorry for being rough.” He apologized sincerely to his partner, bringing his hand up to affectionately stroke the side of Jack’s face.

Jack sighed as Gabriel’s hand drew away. “It’s fine. Sometimes I need a good reminder that you honestly can’t do certain things without causing high amounts of collateral damage. I’m just… trying my best and sometimes I don’t think think even that is acceptable enough.”

“I know.” 

Gabriel gently pulled Jack into his arms and held him while Jack rested his head against Gabriel’s shoulder.

“I want to do more for everyone.”

“I know.”

Jack brought his hands up and gripped the back of Gabriel’s robe tightly in his fists as he held his partner tightly against him.

“I’m scared. I-I don’t want Lena or E-Emily to suffer, Gabe!” He admitted quietly to Gabriel as it all felt like too much to bear and Gabriel responded by bringing up one hand to gently run it through Jack’s hair.

“Then do your best to convince them, Jackie. That or you need to tell Lena and Emily to leave so their lives won’t be used against you like that. There are other drop zones in England that they can go to that might have more of a drive to utilize stardust than the London location. Do all you can now to inform both parties and be at peace with the outcome, alright, Jack?”

“Right. Just do all I can and hope for the best.” Jack sighed, enjoying the comfort Gabriel’s body brought him when he could hold him like this. He honestly wished he could do this more often with Gabriel rather than just be satisfied with his voice in the mech cockpit, regardless if the space was too cramped for that.

\--

Lena and Emily decided that they could not put their well being at risk anymore and snuck out in the middle of the night, Jack perfectly content with not sleeping in a real bed for once as he helped them after the leadership at the zone failed to really show they had the two’s best interests at heart. It was rather easy slipping past the guard when all Jack had to do was politely say that he needed something from the mech to the overly-enthusiastic guards that were eager to please him (crazy ass cultists) and then say his goodbyes to Lena and Emily.

Escorting them with the mech would be borderline insane due to the risks involved with escorting such a huge machine that attracts all sorts of attention and even more so since it’s fleshy monstrosity that only Gabriel could find somewhat appealing (and that was an acquired taste in itself). Gabriel gave them a good idea of where the next drop zone was nearby and general direction to it to help Jack out when he had trouble recalling what was where in London (built in GPS was a nice feature to have in a boyfriend). Jack gave them extra supplies for their journey: four water bottles filled with purified water, two quilt blankets (that Gabe was not too happy about parting with), and a sewing kit to patch up their clothes.

“England isn’t THAT big, Jackie. You’re going overboard with gifts.” Gabriel sighed heavily after Lena and Emily take off into the woods with their new gifts, Gabriel’s human form sitting in Jack’s lap while the seat was pulled upwards slowly back into the mech cockpit. It was amusing seeing a modern day deity snuggle up in a ball against his chest, and Jack held him gently as he rested his chin on Gabriel’s long curly head. The cool night breeze was actually kind of nice with such a warm partner in his lap, regardless of how grumpy he was at the moment.

“Shh. Enjoy the good fuzzy feelings for once, Gabe.” Jack smiled warmly as Gabriel snorted in response.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Jackie.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport.”

Gabriel was probably rolling his eyes at that. “Keep telling yourself that I honestly care.”

“If you want to have some fun before I go to sleep then you should probably humor me every once and awhile, Gabe.” Jack teased as he reached up to pull on Gabriel’s cheek to get a growl out of him.

“I’m going to push you off the chair if you keep this up, Jack!” He huffed with hardly any teeth to back it up as he lightly swatted Jack’s hand away.

Gabriel ended up staying in his human form once they were pulled securely back into the cockpit, Gabe leaving the door open for the rest of the night and pulling out a quilt blanket from the way to drape over their bodies for extra warmth. They could hit the road to travel to Ireland in the morning, but for now, he’ll just enjoy this night in Jack’s arms as he listens to his partner happily sleep away without a care in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: This story was inspired by 'Saya no Uta' (spoiler/warning: It contains non-con and very disturbing themes but is an excellent horror visual novel nonetheless). 
> 
> I'm putting this at the end rather than the beginning so as to not scare people away if they have read 'Saya no Uta' since this series is more focused on wholesome romance with horror-aspects than a 'what if you fell in love with Cthulu' story where there are terrible outcomes to loving them. Yes, there are VERY heavy consequences to Jack's wish that are just both stated and vaguely hinted at but I don't want to turn away readers if they think the non-con that happens in Saya will happen in this fic regardless of the fact that the rating would have been higher and I would have tagged it as such (inspired does not = all the shit in Saya will happen here too).
> 
> I just really like the whole execution Gen Urobuchi did with 'everything being flesh' and how just changing the protagonist' view can really amp up the intensity of the story's atmosphere. I wanted to try my own little spin on it but make Jack truly blind and with 'heat vision' to compensate so he wasn't totally a helpless protagonist. As interesting as a concept that would be to write, I made a pass on it for this particular story but it certainly isn't off the table for another story in another AU.


End file.
